Monday, January 28, 2013

Bhutanese are getting more resourceful when it comes to
naming; be it a person’s name or a name for their business entities.In the eighties and early nineties there used
to be a shop by the name “New Ideas”, located at the heart of Phuentsholing
town.Lots of criticisms were directed
at it, accusing it of not conforming to the traditional name.To this effect an article even appeared in
the opinion column of kuensel.

But today the trend seems to have changed drastically.People are getting lots of “new ideas” and
they are getting more imaginative by the day, when it comes to naming.One noticeable change is in the moniker of
people, which are getting complicated and some of them even sounding like
tongue twisters.

Saturday, January 19, 2013

I come from a small village, located at
the South Eastern part of the country.Back in the late 70s it used to be a small village of just 15
households, where everyone knew everyone.Except for two huts, all houses were made of stone and mud.All of them looked similar - dark and ancient,
in an imposing way.The roofs were
either wood shingles or slates.The
attics were used as granary cum store room and the ground floor housed the
cattle.The family lived in the first
floor, which consisted of two rooms.The
outer room served as the kitchen, dining room, drawing room and the inner one
housed the altar.The whole family
shared these two rooms.

Ours was a large family, perhaps the
largest in the village.My grandfather
used to pride about this very fact.Today we are 116 members, the progeny of our grandparents. Then, we were
seventeen dining members, including us, seven grand children.One uncle used to be away most of the time,
either for ‘woola’ (compulsory labour contribution) or ‘druk dom’ (labour
contribution for a year by a person for every six able bodied men).Another used to tend the cattle and the
supply of butter and cheese never seemed to exhaust.My mother and her sisters used to do the
household chores and weave clothes for the entire family.Life used to be a simple one then.

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

“The only time we ever think about breathing is when we have
trouble doing it…” says Marty Klein, of Palo Alto, California.There are some things we take for granted and
never notice it till it is lost or endangered.Security is one such thing, in the list of a Bhutanese.It has been presented to us on a golden
platter and we made it our right and never realized how we got it and what it
took to get it and even more difficult, what it takes to maintain it.

Thursday, January 10, 2013

New Year, as per the Gregorian calendar, is just over and
it’s time for another of the few new years we, the Bhutanese celebrate, in
different parts of this small country – Lomba in Haa and Paro region,
ChunipaLosar in the East, Dasain in the
southern part and the Daw Dangpa Losar.The
immediate one due is Chunipa Losar, popularly known as ‘The Sharchokp Losar’.

And it is time for another round of
greetings – sending wishing cards (on the dwindle now), calling up friends and
families (the order of precedence here is intentional; friends are always dealt
with first, especially friends of the opposite sex type, after which comes the
family), sending text messages (sms), which is the most popular form as of now,
and finally through social networking sites, the most popular being the
facebook ( I can’t imagine how we would have managed our lives without this
facebook!).

About Me

I am a shy person, almost to the point of being an introvert, with a horrible sense of dressing (at least that’s what my wife thinks!). A social drinker and when I am a bit on the higher side (not very often though) better watch out and shelter your eardrums, because I am told that I blow my own trumpets. Otherwise you will find me a gentle soul. I love art in any form. I play a little bit of almost all musical instruments. I do a bit of pencil shading and a bit of wood carving too. Oops! Here I go again.